Milestone 1

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Making characters has been one of my many hobbies ever since I got into RPG's, (roll-playing games), and I'm aiming to become a concept artist for some gaming company like Bioware or Bethesda or possibly for hire in sci-fi or fantasy movies and series that would require such. For Animation 260 I'm making a character buildup process from start to finish starting with black and white pencil concepts. For future milestones this will lead to colored concepts with prismacolor pencils to Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop concepts to finally a high polygon character model. I chose a character I started up a little over year ago named Tanwen, a white human pirate girl whom is a chaotic good aligned hireling and captain of a grappler ship known as the XGP-2 and nicknamed the "Black Phoenix". Below is a model of the ship and an old portrait I did of Tanwen.

 

I've changed Tanwen some since the early illustration I did of her over a year ago and kept making little changes throughout the concepts until finally getting a look I'd feel comfortable with. Below are some black and white concepts of Tanwen.

The Illustration of Tanwen below will later be imported in Adobe Illustrator and traced over then colored over in Adobe Photoshop.

Finally after getting some of the black and white concepts done for Tanwen I did front and side view Illustrations of Tanwens' head and entire body, first naked and then layered over in clothes that will be used as guides when I finally get to building the model. The reason I did the illustrations of Tanwen naked first then layered over in cloths is because I will be modeling her body and clothes separately rather than all in one model. That way if I ever use this model anywhere else, perhaps even a game, I can always change the clothes to show Tanwen in various outfits without having to constantly redo her body in the process. It's kind of like in many of those RPG games when you change gear on your character or strip them of it. It annoys me when a character model body and clothing are merged on the same model piece and tends to come off as a kind of poor excuse or shortcut for getting the work done faster with less effort in my opinion at least. Don't get me wrong though, sometimes having them merged on the same model piece can be for the better depending on the use of the character.

Head Views

Body Views (Naked)

Body Views (Clothed)

Body Views (Outer Coat)

Other Characters

Below are some black and white concept examples of some other characters I've done in the past. The ones below are actually made based off of people I know who requested character avatars of themselves based off of the whole geeky sci-fi/fantasy world I made up just like how a lot of game companies do themselves. The first character below is a male dark elf, aka drow, necromancer I made based off myself, (yes you can laugh at me all you want for that, I know it's dorky, and no he's not intended to be a pretty boy).

Below is a male common orc berserker I made based off my brother, (he actually looks a lot like this in reality to as a human of course though).

Below is a female lightfoot halfling, aka hobbit, ranger I made based off one my close friends.

Sources, (Links)

some helpful websites for concept artists.

http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/15962-interview-biowares-lead-concept-artist-arnie

https://jobs.ea.com/search/view.do?id=a0z500000010O8N

Sources, (Books)

some helpful books and websites to find them on for concept artists.

http://www.ballisticpublishing.com/books/exotique_series/
http://conceptartworld.com/?p=10637

Milestone 2

I decided adding some background info on Tanwen along with the artwork would help in showing just how far I go when creating characters. When I think up a new character, actual character and not just a misc figure I'm drawing, it's not just a simple drawing or two I'll do of them then forget about it but I look to go in depth with them thinking up a background story, their gender, race, class, general weapons and clothing they wear, combat wears, casual wears, likes and dislikes, fetishes, history, exc. And of course, thanks to the inspiration of D&D's character building guide rules, character alignment helps define an individual, alignments include Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil. Below I inserted an illustration of Tanwens' weapons, I always equip characters I make with several weapons to cover different situations like melee combat, medium range, long range, exc rather than just a one defined weapon like what you'd see on many anime characters. I also wrote up a brief biography on Tanwen, well brief in comparision to what I might generally do, although bear with me when I say I'm no professional writter to any degree, this is simply an example to show what kind of process I go into when making a character I intend to stick with.

About Tanwen

Most who come to know Tanwen can never truely figure her out as it seems like she doesn't even have herself completly figured out. Many would say she is plane crazy though those whom know her best would say she's just ahead of herself. Tanwen is something of a both organized yet disorganized, cautious yet bold, kind but cold individual. Sometimes she'll be serious and think long and hard before making an act while at other times she's sarcastically humerous and willing to gamble everything even when the odds are not in her favor, those it's somewhat of a mystery as to how any of her closest friends or companions manage to put up with her.
Tanwen grew up having a rather rough life after losing what family she knew from the after effects of a war that took place and was forced to learn a number of dirty work and skills to get her by. She was eventually taken in by a small group of outlaws whom had use for her and helped her improve in the skills she learned to defend herself or what could earn a decent proffit from stealth, stealing, prostitution, smuggeling, exc. Because Tanwen spent a number of years prior to then like a begger on the streets, she more than less only likes to steal a few things wealther individuals wouldn't miss and has sometimes been generious to give to the poor which may sometimes seem out of character for her since she usually denies having feelings.

To make a long story short, Tanwen and a few others eventually hit a jackpot in their findings when they were hired by a crime organization known as "The Silver Fist" to track down a lost highly advanced ship reffered to as the "XGP-2", (note the original idea for this ship was actually an inspirational following model to the XGP in the anime series Outlaw Star). Things however took an unexpected turn of events when Tanwen and her companions found out the Silver Fist had no intention of holding up on their end of the deal with the payment after locating the ship but instead disspose of them those Tanwen and the other betrayed adventures managed to steal the ship and put a big dent in the Silver Fist those have also made a bounty upon themselves by the Silver Fist as a result. After a number of following events Tanwen became the owner of the ship and made a number of custumizations to it along with nick naming it "The Black Phoenix" that her and a number of other adventures made a home out of and making a continued living as hirelings.

Although Tanwen is unpredictable, she's not completly at random and does always follow on some guides and morals. She believes in freedom and is heavily opposed by slavery, governments and laws. Tanwen also hates double crossers as she's sickend by betrayel although she'll ironically always prepare to betray almost any client she works for in advance in case she finds herself backstabbed, "Why not play someone by their own game?" she'll often say. Overall though Tanwen is the sort whom has no long term plane or goal, she just simply wants to get by in life and live by her own terms with no one telling her what to do. Not allowing one's self to be pushed around is exactly the kind of lession she'd be willing to beat physically into anyone whom questions so.

Colored Pencil Illustrations

I've been working with prismacolor pencils for about half a year now and have found them nice for making medium quality colored illustrations, (I use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for higher end ones). I've experimented with a few other brands of coloring utilities before such as copiic markers, exc although favor using prismacolor pencils, one reason being the vast amount of colors avialble to work with. Below are some earlier examples of past works I've done with them.

Above is one of the earliest illustrations I did with prismacolor pencils of a succubus.

Above are some quick portraits I did of some of the characters I made based off people I know, you might reconize some of them from the black and white concepts in milestone 1 post.

Above, a female common orc/white human hybrid paragon, (also in the heads illustration above), to left facing a male mountain troll deathknight to the right, (yes I'm aware my version of trolls looks like Warcrafts' version although Warcraft is not where I mainly got the idea from).

Finally above is the colored illustration I did of Tanwen for ANI 260. Originally I was thinking of doing a large portarit or scenory image of Tanwen looking out on a balcony but then decided I wanted to challenge myself more and illustrate an action scene. The scene is of a bar fight of Tanwen dashing out from behind the flipped over table where two others characters of mine you may reconize are taking cover. In the background you can see part of the lower floor where people are running left and right in a panic over all the firing taking place on the floor above. This was defenetly the most time consuming prismacolor illustration I've done yet but I'm fairly satisfied by the results to say in the least.

The Races

Below are illusrations of the differant races I've had going in my own sci-fi/fantasy world I've thought up. Note that not all of these races share the same planet, Humans, Dwarfs, Gnomes, Halflings and Orcs are all on one, Mythra, Khajiit and Sahuagins share another, Elves, Fairies, Trolls and Goblins on another and Astechiques and Voljerahs are on another. Also these are just the basic races as wholes and not all the specific types of each race like Humans for example where there are White Humans, Black Humans, Asian Humans, Native Humans, Hispanic Humans and Arab Humans or Elves where there are High Elves, Wood Elves, Moon Elves, Blood Elves, Dark Elves and Sea Elves. Not all of these details are finalized yet. Each illustration below has 2 races and shows both the males and females of that race, (male always on left and female always on right). When making a race or my own version of an already existing one I try think up as much in depth as I can on that race not only as a race but as a people, more specifically what I mean by is many differant features that difine individuals of that race like eye colors, hair, (or the closest thing to hair for some of the races like the Sahuagins, Astechiques and Voljerahs), facial structures, cultures and societies, technology, architecture, exc. just whatever I can. It seems like a number of movie/game races have little effort and creativity put into them when all the individuals look the same, have the same beliefs, speak the same language, exc. I mean look at Humans here on earth!

Above, Humans to the left, Dwarfs to the right.

 Above, Gnomes to the left, Halflings to the right.

Above, Orcs to the left, Mythras to the right.

Above, Khajiits to the left, Sahuagins to the right.

Above, Elves to the left, Faries to the right.

Above, Trolls to left, Goblins to the right.

Above, Astechiques to the left, Voljerahs to the right.

Milestone 3

Below are some additional details added on Tanwen that were either not mentioned before or vague in description back in Milestone 2.

Physical Description

They say it's rude to ask a woman her age though I say screw that. Tanwen is 26 years old, (or at least in the illustrations I've done of her like the one above), and stands 5 ft, 8 in heigh and weighs 132 lbs. As mentioned earlier, Tanwen is a human and white as far as species of human goes. Her skin is a bit pale and bears numerous battle scars. Tanwen however is more prowd than she is ashamed of her scars and has no problem purposely showing off much of her skin in general to hint at this along with for seduction purposes and flexibility. While her hair is currently purple, along with purple lipstick, and her eyes pink, these are obviosly not the natural colors for that white humans do not naturaly have purple hair or pink eyes. Tanwens' natural hair color is blond, (or yellow as I'd preffer to call it), and her eyes amber although has had her hair dyed purple for more than several years now and her eye irises tattooed pink, it is not uncommon for some races and cultures of people to do these modifications apon themselves, drow, aka dark elves for example only have white, gray or yellow hair naturally though hair dye is quit common amongst their individuals. Tanwen also often wears a patch eye although this is not because she is missing an eye but rather as a common strategy pirates would often do where the eye they cover with the patch is able to adjust to the dark while their exposed eye can naturally adjust to the light those when finding themselves in the dark would switch or lift their eye patch and that eye would already be ready to see clearly in the dark. Most of the time Tanwen wears her eye patch over her left eye, (left from her perspective). She has a red striped or scar shaped tattoo on the lower half of her right cheek, (again from her perspective).

Computer Concept Art

Adobe photoshop and Illustrator can help you make some really beutiful looking art although it's also all the more time consuming as well. In the past I'd use Adobe Illustrator for the more anime like art I generally do although have recentally been liking Photoshop for its' paint effects. I still do use Adobe Illustrator for part of the artwork though as the pen tool I use when making the outlines is far better in Illustrator than Photoshop. I've done a handful of art with Illustrator and Photoshop and how i do the art has been constantly changing over the years as I keep finding out more and more. Below are a few of the past works I've done with Adobe Illustrator and the changes that have been made to the style.

Above is a Pizzahut add poster I did back when I was in Graphic Design of the anime character C.C from "Code Geass". The outlines are just strokes of differant thicknesses and filled with solid colors. On an upper layer I added more shapes without the strokes and in darker shades and blured for the shading and light effects.

Above is a wallpaper I did in my spare time of one of my favorite anime characters, Sosuke Aizen after becoming hollowfied from "Bleach". I actually don't like "Bleach" at all as far as the story and the majority of the characters go but I loved Aizen primarly for his manipulitive personality and mastermind thinking. Rather than doing the outlines with strokes, I drew out individual shapes on a seperate layer filled in black to act as the outlines as this seemed to add more depth and 3D feel. Also, the coloring this time around was all done by gradient meshes which looked a lot better in my opinion from my previous method of coloring and shading in Illustrator although much more time cunsuming.

Above is a previous project I did in Animation of an older character of mine named Toshiko, a female Asian Human mage. I admit the wizard hat didn't come out as well as I'd hoped. This poster was all done the same way as the Aizen one above although with more gradient mesh shapes and dots which certainally added to the rendor time.

Tanwen Computer Art (in the making)

Getting started is always the slowest and hardest part when making something. As for the computer art of Tanwen I'm now working on, I start by after scanning in the pencil drawing I did earlier and opening it in Adobe Illustrator. After setting up all the layers, I draw out the outlines in Illustrator with the pen tool, using the pencil drawing as a guide. Below you can see some of the progress I've made those far.

Below is a zoom in of some of the outlines selected where you can see how the're drawn with the pen tool in Illustrator. I've been drawing outlines in Illustrator this way for over a few years now and while a somewhat slow process, it seems to bring out the best results in my opinion.

Below you can see the layers of the artwork. It's important to always name your layers in any artwork you're doing in Illustrator, Photoshop, exc. for that it'll help you stay organized.

Milestone 4

From where I last left off I was working on making the computer concept art of Tanwen. Below I separated the working process details in the Illustrator half and the Photoshop half.

Adobe Illustrator

After finishing the outlines in Adobe Illustrator I zoom in and check over them making whatever little finishing edits that I see fit from details like the eye size, lips shape, exc. While the style of the art I do is intended to be somewhat anime like I try to keep all the portions correct and realistic, I never cared for the cartoonie over sized eyes or the tiny triangular shaped noses and mouths not to mention the lack of muscle details in the characters' bodies. Proportions wouldn't be as big a deal if the character I was illustrating wasn't a human since you can always make your own proportions to your own races, why keep them the exact same as human ones after all? When making another race it should be very different and unique, say for example Tanwen was an elf rather than a human. Some portraying of elves look just like humans but with pointy ears, that's so lack of creativity in my opinion, why stop there? I like my elves ears not only pointy but long, give them thin and tall faces and heads, silk like textured hair, more slender and lanky like body builds than humans, smoother skin and body curves, larger eye proportions, insect antenna like eye brows, colored eye balls, (not just the irises but the eye balls as well), and sparkled skin that glows in the dark like what the Navi had in "Avatar". Anyways though that's all just an example and enough of my rambling on that. I separated the outlines in a few layers below, one for Tanwen, one for the tattoo markings and flames on the eye patch, (note this layer is simply just for guides to paint over in Photoshop), and one for the background.

Above, these are the separate layers I made for the outlines. Below is the result after all the layers are visible, as you can see, the outlines with Tanwen and the pilot seat overlap with one another though this won't matter in Photoshop as long as the layers remain separated, the coloring can be done in layers in between to hide this.

Below I made copies of these outlines in color figuring I'd experiment with it in Photoshop to see which would look better in the end.

Adobe Photoshop

Once the outlines are finished I make a separate save file for each layer visible then import them into Photoshop through File, Place and load the file. The outlines are now open in Photoshop as seen below.

Now comes the really fun part, (sarcasm), making lasso selections around the individually colored areas. Why do this?, so when it comes to painting the areas you don't have to constantly erase the little areas afterwords where the paint can easily overlap the intended areas and that editing takes a LOT of time when you've got numerous details and colors going on in the artwork. Fortunately doing all this on the outlines layers makes this much easier. There are several different types of lasso selecting methods available in Photoshop, personally I find the magnetic and polygonal lasso tools to be most useful for this approach. I usually keep making little selections then adding to them when selecting again until I have all of the intended area selected, doing a quick zoom in and subtracting or adding any little areas you might have missed out on before is always a good idea. Once the selection is done I save and name the selection as can be seen below.

Once all the selections are done and saved I start painting in the selected area and layer, it's best make lots of layers for this and keep them named and organized, I like to make a separate layer for each of the colors used. I like to get everything colored in with full solid hard brush colors before getting to shading/lighting exc., the results are below.

After doing some experimenting with the shading I ended up making copies of each colored layer, making the above layer of each colored section a darker shade or displayed as "Multiply" rather than "Normal" for the shading layers. The copied color layers intended for shading viewed in "Multiply" are displayed below.

From here I load the selections of the colored areas on the "Multiply" viewed layers and use the eraser tool with a airbrush soft round stroke to get that more blending feel with the shading and lighting and start erasing the shadowed areas where the lighting is intended to show. Think ahead of time where the light will be coming from and the direction it's facing and go from there. Below are some of the lighting and shading results on Tanwens' skin and hair in progress. The light is coming a bit from the left in the image so most of the shadows are shown to the right.

Below is a result of some further progress taking place, there are still some little details that need to be filled in before this is done but this gives off a good idea of where the final result is headed.